Posts Tagged ‘Eating Disorders’

Are we OK with games that allow kids to perform eye lifts and nose jobs?

Melinda Tankard Reist

A large needle is jabbed into the lips of a young girl. Instantly they become sausage-shaped.

Another girl, oxygen mask over her mouth, has her nose cut into with a scalpel.

A larger-sized girl in saggy underwear has a hose attached to her arm to suck out the fat.

Where did I see these images? In games targeted at children. With online gaming apps like Girls Plastic Surgery Doctor, Mermaid’s Plastic Surgery, Princess Plastic Surgery and Superstar Face, children are given the opportunity to carry out eye lifts, nose jobs, and lip implants, and create entirely new faces using plastic surgery simulators.

The games instruct them in how to use ice to numb pre-treatment sites, lighten dark skin, decrease larger noses, carve off weight and achieve rounded eyes.

In one game, the player is positioned behind the counter of a sterile waiting room. A woman approaches the counter and a text box pops up that says: “She needs a nose job, please help her.”

In some scenes, the young (virtual) patients look like they are being tortured, their eyes full of fear.

But it’s all worth it because they are transformed from an “ugly” girl into Elsa from Disney’s Frozen.

Given that a growing number of young women are seeking Botox and cosmetic surgery, wanting desperately to plump their lips to Kardashian proportions, these games should concern all of us.

They use animated characters and vibrant graphics to glamorise — and normalise — cosmetic surgery.

But while women have always been told they should strive to achieve physical “perfection”, the rise of games that effectively groom children to seek appearance-altering surgery in the future signals a new normal.

After all, why would they “love the skin they’re in” when they can slice, shape and inject it into something “hotter”?

The Botox boom is filtering down to our kids

I speak in schools around the country, including primary schools, about healthy body image — children often tell me of body image concerns.

I’ve seen little girls pinch their tummies and say they are “too fat”.

Indeed, we know that a growing number of children are anxious, worried, and unhappy with how they look.

The 2016 Mission Australia Youth Study identified body image as a top issue of concern for young Australians, and the National Eating Disorder Collaboration reports that 70 per cent of young women experience body dissatisfaction.

And, while no-one knows exactly how much cosmetic surgery is being performed in Australia (reporting of statistics is not mandatory), there is unprecedented growth in non-surgical procedures like Botox, with Australians spending at least $1 billion on cosmetic treatments each year.

Anecdotally, a growing number of young people are having work done — lip fillers are particularly popular, seemingly made normal by celebrity culture.

It’s partly why the Australian Medical Board last year introduced a mandatory cooling-off period for young people under 18 seeking cosmetic surgery, and mandatory consultations for anyone seeking Botox and fillers.

“We know that younger people are often a bit impetuous and often are vulnerable in ways that more mature people aren’t, in relation to self-esteem, and concerns about appearance,” said Dr Joanna Flynn, chair of the Medical Board.

The companies profiting from the ‘body angst’ epidemic

The global technology companies that sell these games — Apple, Google, and Amazon — need to acknowledge that they are profiting from this epidemic of body angst, and introduce clear policies stating that they will not accept them from developers in the first place.

There are hundreds of cosmetic surgery games available through the various app stores for kids to play: a mix of paid and free, though most appear to be free (the ads featured within them generate revenue).

While some games are listed as available for adults only (for example, 17+, depending on the platform), their features undoubtedly appeal to children and there is nothing to prevent children accessing them.

Currently, the onus is on parents to report apps they consider to be unsuitable.

In fact, Apple removed some apps in 2014, and again in 2016, after receiving complaints, but they have since reappeared.

Which is why Endangered Bodies, The Butterfly Foundation and Embodied at La Trobe University have combined to petition them to remove these games.

Similar petitions launched in the US, UK and New Zealand have attracted almost 20,000 signatures.

‘Contributing to children hating themselves is not a game’

Sarah McMahon, a psychologist and founding director of eating disorder treatment practice BodyMatters Australasia, said she and her colleagues were seeing more cases of young girls and boys presenting with “clinically significant concerns regarding their appearance”.

“Kids are growing up with a stronger message than ever that your appearance matters, you can only look one way, and there is tremendous cost to not meeting that ideal,” said Ms McMahon, who is also the Australian spokeswoman for Endangered Bodies.

“If you don’t meet that ideal there is something wrong with you that needs to be fixed.

“Cosmetic surgery apps frame major surgery as a game, normalizing the procedures and trivialising their risk. These apps make choosing a new nose look as innocent and harmless as choosing a new outfit rather than the major surgery that it is.”

Of course, women have long been told they should strive for a “youthful” appearance, and that we are irrelevant if we’re not hot.

We are targeted everywhere — from airbrushed images in magazines and on billboards, the lack of body diversity in the fashion and beauty industries, to filtered social media images.

But contributing to children hating themselves is not a game.

Do we really want our girls to grow up believing that surgically altering their appearance is a normal part of being a woman?

Chocolate slice-shaming: Are we giving kids the wrong messages about food?

By Melinda Tankard Reist

About 15 years ago, a message was sent home from my daughter’s primary school teacher. It wasn’t about chocolate slice. It was about her hair.

My then six-year-old’s head was covered in tight, thick ringlets. While many clucked and cooed about her “gorgeous” hair, they didn’t have to wash it, or try to get a brush through it.

It was an ordeal, one I approached with dread — she’d cry and flail about. And so it wasn’t washed or brushed as often as more patient parents might have done.

(I also had two other children and a baby who needed attention.)

But then came the message from school: I must brush my daughter’s hair. Apparently it was unacceptable to send her to school with hair unkempt.

I felt put down. We might have tried a bit harder. Or we might have gone on as usual until she was old enough to do it herself (which was more likely).

Still, that teacher was lucky I wasn’t on social media in those days.

The story of my daughter’s hair came rushing back to mind this week when my long-time friend posted on Facebook a note her three-year-old’s kindergarten had sent home on the child’s first day.

“Your child has ‘chocolate slice’ from the Red Food category today,” the note, which featured a sad face, said. “Please choose healthier options for Kindy.”

When I reposted her note, along with the message, “I told her to put in two slices tomorrow and tell them to get lost”, I had no idea it would trigger such outrage.

It was shared hundreds of times, and was written up in news media outlets around the world.

Since then, I have been fielding media requests around the clock (will someone get me some bloody chocolate slice, please?!).

When ‘organic, sugarless’ muffins are sent home

The offending hedgehog slice (one mum, who texted in to 2UE, called it “satanic slice”) had been homemade for a birthday celebration and, as per family tradition, leftovers went to school the next day.

I’ve known my friend for a quarter of a century — I know the kind of mum she is. She makes everything from scratch, including bread, and bakes like there’s no tomorrow for her eight children.

Her kids are the kind who read books instead of watch TV. My friend and her husband both have degrees in health science — she is also a writer and researcher.

It could make children think that mummy and daddy had done something very wrong to receive something like that from their teacher.

Of course, I understand the importance of healthy eating policies. I appreciate that harried teachers are most likely just trying to carry out school policy (while also not being trained dieticians).

But I’m concerned about where this approach to eating takes us.

Since my post went viral, stories from similarly frustrated parents have flooded in.

I’ve been told of cases of children whose food was sent home uneaten — because it was not “approved” — and the child has had nothing to eat all day.

Organic, sugarless zucchini muffins; banana, almond meal and chia muffins; and homemade (nut-free) bliss balls have all been sent home.

Children have been told they were meant to have sandwiches, not muffins — even when their muffin could not have been healthier.

‘I can’t eat cake, Mum, it will make me fat’

Cupcakes — which had less sugar and calories than green-lit muesli bars — have also been sent home uneaten, according to one mum who did the calculations.

Another mother told me of a time when she’d sent her kid to school with a lunch box filled with apples, carrots, raisins and chicken … and a single, tiny chocolate egg, which the teacher promptly confiscated.

“My son was devo,” she said. “Then after school [the teacher] lectured me about healthy lunches. I blew my head off!”

Some parents told of children hiding in the schoolyard to eat homemade cookies, afraid of being discovered. Others said their children were ashamed to eat treats even at home — hiding food and eating it privately away from the family.

Children as young as six are presenting with eating disorders, and anti-obesity messages are partly to blame, the Butterfly Foundation says.

One young girl had reportedly stopped eating chocolate cake in any context. “Mum, I can’t eat chocolate cake because it will make me fat,” she told her mother.

When children see food as “good” or “bad” it can set them up for eating disorders.

Some eating disorder specialists I work with say the bombardment of messages around obesity is causing food anxiety and contributing to disordered eating behaviour in children.

It’s also worth considering the fact that many kids go to school without any food at all.

As Alice, who is training to be a primary teacher, wrote to me privately:

“I’ve seen kids come with no food at all on such a regular basis that every lunch time the teacher would collect uneaten food from other kids’ lunch boxes to put into a snack drawer to feed those kids who came to school without.”

She added: “It’s great this school is concerned about what their students are eating, because it does affect their performance in the classroom.

“But I think they have lost perspective here. Is it necessary to shame parents for what they put in the lunchbox?”

My friend ended up digging out the kindergarten’s food policy, which banned only “processed” cakes and biscuits. She hadn’t broken the rules after all.

But it seems an important discussion has begun.

Hopefully it results in positive outcomes for parents, schools and — most importantly — children.

The objectification of women is so unremarkable in advertising and popular culture that it’s sometimes hard to envisage what an alternative might look like. Is it possible to advertise lingerie or swimwear without objectifying women, we are asked? Is objectification in the amount of flesh revealed, or is it more than that? Where is the line between women being merely attractive and objectified?

First, let’s define what objectification is. Dr Caroline Heldman has a great test to identify sexual objectification- what she calls the CHIPS test.

1) Commodity: Does the image show a sexualised person as a commodity, for example, as something that can be bought and sold?

2) Harmed: Does the image show a sexualised person being harmed, for example, being violated or unable to give consent?

3) Interchangeable: Does the image show a sexualised person as interchangeable, for example, a collection of similar bodies?

4) Parts: Does the image show a sexualised person as body parts, for example, a human reduced to breasts or buttocks?

5) Stand-In: Does the image present a sexualised person as a stand-in for an object, for example, a human body used as a chair or a table?

Jennifer Moss also wrote about the deliberate construction of women’s poses in advertising, assigning them into categories:

A.) SCARED/VICTIM

She’s looking over her shoulder or her facial expression is frightened. She has her hands up in protective or shielding position. She’s pulling away from a man. She’s dead. Any image depicting the woman as victim.

B.) POSITIONED FOR SEX/UNDRESSED

She is set up for sex: lying supine or close to it. Her legs are spread. She’s on a bed. She’s in a state of undress in which she wouldn’t (realistically) be allowed in public. Something is in her mouth.

C.) NON-THREATENING/DEMURE/CHILDLIKE

Head angled. Eyes looking away, down. The classic “hunch” pose of the upper torso. Body is not square to the camera. Chin is down. Body language depicting submission, weakness.

D.) OBJECTIFIED/NON-HUMAN/ONE OF MANY

No face or her face is obscured. A group of women all dressed and made up the same. No individuality. A product.

It doesn’t have to be like this- there is another way.

In researching for this blog post, I spent a fair amount of time looking for advertising that did not sexualise or objectify women. Unfortunately, this was a rather fruitless endeavor! I found two examples. One was ad agency, Badger and Winters. (Scroll up to the very top to see their work for lingerie company Naja, and more examples here.)

Badger and Winters

After advertising executive Madonna Badger tragically lost her three daughters and her parents in a fire on Christmas Day in 2012, she made the decision to no longer objectify women in her advertising.

Badger uses the following four criteria to determine if an ad objectifies women:

Prop: Does the woman have a choice or voice in this situation?

Part: Is she reduced to just a sexually provocative body part?

Plastic: Is the image manipulated to the extent that the look is not humanly achievable?

What if: Would you be comfortable to see your sister, best friend or yourself in this image?

You can see Badger and Winters work for lingerie company Naja. This ad campaign shows how it is entirely possible to sell lingerie without objectifying women or replicating porn-inspired scenarios.

Well Made Clothes

The second example is Well Made Clothes- an online marketplace selling clothing from the ‘world’s best’ fashion labels. All stock featured on the website must meet the criteria for one of their values. Their advertising presents women as whole people rather than faceless, objectified and interchangeable.

Handy hints for advertisers

In many ads, women are not portrayed as whole people. They are reduced to a series of sexualized body parts (or even just one), or their identity is based on their sexuality or sexual availability. Objectification occurs when a person is reduced to object status, or becomes a thing, rather than fully human. While this can happen to women or men, this objectification is much more frequently done to women.

Women are often depicted as idle, merely posing to be looked at. There are various examples of advertising for women’s active wear that do just this. Advertisers could have a powerful impact by showing women running, lifting and actually engaging in activity, rather than merely posing- see an example from Cotton On Body:

Audiences are diverse, and as such advertising should not be limited to images of young, thin, white, able-bodied women. Diversity in race, age, body type can send a great positive message that all bodies, all people, are valued.

Context is also important in advertising. While it may be appropriate and relevant for a woman to be depicted in a bikini at the beach, or to sell swimwear, this is a very different context from a woman in a bikini to sell tools, or an unrelated product. In the latter scenario the woman becomes a prop, a merely decorative object.

We’re heartened to see agencies like Badger and Winters committing to a higher standard, and we hope other companies follow suit.

Do you know of any other companies doing the same? Let us know in the comments!

We must half messages and imagery which reduces women to sexual objects, fosters a culture which condones sexual violence, and pressures young girls to act in prematurely sexual ways

We hope this inquiry won’t go the way of all the others before it – doing nothing to rein in the vested interests of marketers, advertisers and the media and allowing business as usual, despite the growing body of global evidence of the harms to young people due to the proliferation of hypersexual images and messages inundating them daily.

Submission summary

Children and young people are growing up in a high-tech culture steeped in relentlessly sexualised, sexualising and sexist messaging from media, advertising and popular culture which conditions them from a young age to view themselves and others in terms of their appearance and sexual currency. While women and girls are primarily the subjects of hyper-sexualised media representation, these messages also play a crucial part in socialising men and boys to see the sexual objectification of women and girls as normal.

Many adults are overwhelmed by the task of protecting and equipping children as they navigate the contemporary media and social landscape. The current legislative and regulatory environment is piecemeal, confusing for the community to navigate, and tends to serve the commercial advantage of corporate and marketing interests to the detriment of the community – children and young people in particular. Despite a number of state and federal inquiries demonstrating the need for systemic reform, media classification and self-regulatory schemes have failed to halt or even slow the proliferation of imagery and messaging through electronic, print and social media and marketing that demeans women, reduces them to sexual objects, fosters a culture which condones sexual violence, and pressures young girls to act in prematurely sexual ways.

Collective Shout is critical of the self-regulatory system currently favoured in media and advertising, which allows free rein to marketers while placing the burden of action on those most at risk of exploitation and harm. In particular, we are concerned about the lack of effective incentive or enforcement to deter those who are making a profit from the sexualisation of children and young people. Media and advertising interests have had ample opportunity to hear and act on community concerns but have instead have chosen to protect their vested interests. It is time for government to step in and act on behalf of children and young people

Recommendations:

Recognition of the harms of sexualisation as a public health crisis requiring swift and decisive action on behalf of children and young people.

The restructuring of the current regulatory environment to bring the regulation of all media and marketing together under one encompassing independent federal regulator, including a division with the primary responsibility of protecting the interests of children and young people, addressing both the direct and indirect sexualisation of children in all media modes from a child-rights basis.

Equipping parents and carers with the appropriate media literacy tool and institutional supports, to raise children who have the ability to be critical consumers and creators of media.

The evaluation and implementation of appropriate school-based education programs to educate children and young people about the harms of sexualisation, and funding to help schools secure these resources.

For a child-rights based approach to addressing the harms of media hypersexualisation, including respect for the voices and points of view of children and young people.

That the prevalence of sexualised images of women in our society be recognised as a significant underlying contributor to violence against women and girls.

The commissioning of comprehensive research to establish the extent of the exposure of children and young people in NSW to sexualising media content. However, this research should not preclude swift government action on the basis of the evidence that already exists.

*Full submission will be made available when it appears in submission listings on the NSW Parliament website.

‘A chocolate bar every now and then won’t kill me, but not eating a chocolate bar every now and then will strengthen my eating disorder, which in turn will kill me (and nearly did)’

Claire Mercer

When I was around 12 years old I developed Anorexia Nervosa and became seriously ill in a very short space of time. I won’t go into the nitty gritty details of my story, but the past eight years have been what could only be described as a living hell for myself and my family. It has been a long journey of hospitalisations, close calls, treatment centres, nasogastric tubes, fights, relapse, weight gain, and the list goes on.

I have had periods of doing pretty well, but last year I had a pretty severe relapse and in January ended up in ICU fighting for my life. How I survived, no one really knows, but here I am to tell the tale.

Along with my parents and treatment team, I have worked really hard and have fought tooth and nail against the eating disorder. I have put on almost 25 kilograms, and am managing to eat three meals and four snacks every day, as part of my treatment plan. That probably sounds incredibly simple to most people, but the fact I am not only still alive, but also at a healthy weight, and am back on track with my eating, is nothing short of a miracle for me.

I am not recovered, not by a long shot. Anorexia doesn’t just disappear once a person reaches a healthy weight. In fact the illness seems to dig its heels in further when they reach a healthy weight. This is because they are literally going against everything that the eating disorder wants. While I have a long way to go in terms of mental recovery, I have come so far in the past six months, and probably the past eight years when I think about it. I have conquered a lot of challenges and fears, and continue to fight every second of every day.

There is no set cause of eating disorders, but certain people are predisposed, or susceptible to developing the disorder. A combination of genetic, biological, environmental and circumstantial factors contribute to the development of the illness. It’s a complex intertwining of these factors that determine the predisposition.

However, just because a person is predisposed to developing one, doesn’t mean that they will actually develop an eating disorder. For people who are susceptible to developing eating disorders, they will only actually develop the disorder if they engage in eating disorder behaviours, such as dieting, fasting, compulsive exercising, binging, purging, etc. If they never engage in these behaviours, they won’t actually develop the disorder. Sort of like if a person is allergic to nuts, they won’t actually have an allergic reaction unless they are exposed to the nuts. I guess you could say the people who are susceptible to developing an eating disorder are ‘allergic’ to dieting and other similar behaviours.

The revised version of the food pyramid has made me feel a little uneasy. I totally understand our current health issues and the need for dietary changes for many people in Australia. However, Nutrition Australia seems to have forgotten the large and ever increasing number of people who have, are developing, or will develop, an eating disorder. There are so many people struggling with eating disorders, or disordered eating, and it is significantly fuelled by the current ‘health obsession.’ (When I was hospitalised in 2008, there was only one other patient with an eating disorder on the adolescent ward, and they were only in for a few days. Besides those few days, I was the sole patient with an eating disorder. When I was hospitalised in 2012, there were, around 11 eating disorder patients on the ward).

While there is no set cause of eating disorders, the behaviours are triggers. Cutting out fun foods (or ‘junk foods’ as they are referred to by Nutrition Australia) might help improve some people’s health, but it will also be a detriment to the health of others. The term ‘orthorexia’, while not a diagnosis in the DSM 5, is associated with the obsession of eating only ‘healthy’ foods. It is an issue not only for those diagnosed eating disorders, but also for a large portion of the general population. All of these fad diets, exercise obsessions, and ‘clean eating’ regimes are becoming the norm, and it is (despite popular belief), not actually healthy.

I have worked exceptionally hard at overcoming ‘fear foods’. There was a time in which I couldn’t bring myself to even look at something like chocolate, or pasta, because of the fear that it was bad or would make me gain weight. Although it is still extremely difficult, I am able to enjoy chocolate, and pasta, and many other foods that were once forbidden.

Life needs to be about balance. I understand that Nutrition Australia are not necessarily saying that we should cut out certain food groups altogether, but for people with predispositions to eating disorders, the new changes are very likely to be interpreted in this way. I know that a lot of people will disregard the new pyramid and will continue to eat in the same way that they always have (and quite frankly, the people who disregard it are likely to be the people who desperately need to be more aware it), however many will take the pyramid on board and see it as the be all and end all – particularly young people, and especially young females, who are being brainwashed by this current health obsession.

We have become fearful and associate poor dietary habits, lack of exercise, weight gain, etc with being bad people. We need to get the message out that it’s okay to have balance. In fact we need balance. Not just for our physical health, but also our mental health. We need to be aware of the potential for this new pyramid to be incorrectly interpreted and taken too far. Eating disorders are fatal, and I have absolutely no doubt that they will become more and more prevalent and will destroy the lives of more and more people.

I am finally in a strong enough headspace to know that I need to do what is right for me, and not what society, and the new pyramid is telling us is ‘right’. However, not everyone will have the same experience as myself and they may not be able to rationalise and put things into perspective. I always say that a chocolate bar every now and then won’t kill me, but not eating a chocolate bar every now and then will strengthen my eating disorder, which in turn will kill me (and nearly did).

By no means am I saying that we need to live unhealthy lives. But we do need balance, and to show our society that it’s okay to not be perfect. I don’t really have anything against the message Nutrition Australia is trying to get out, because I definitely agree that there are a lot of people who are not eating in a healthy, balanced way. However, I also believe that it is critical for the message to get out there that restrictive eating, limiting foods, and being too rigid is dangerous. We all need to hear the message that being self-accepting, loving, and kind towards ourselves is crucial in living happy, healthy lives.

I’m never going to be able to cure eating disorders, but I want to do everything I possibly can to raise awareness, support others, and reduce the prevalence of the illness. The food pyramid is somewhat of a good movement to encourage people to start leading healthier lives, however I believe that for a significant number of people, it has the potential to be very harmful.

I hope it will at least start a fresh discussion on eating disorder awareness, prevention, and treatment and true health.

Have you tried the latest health cleanse? It’s SO great. It’ll help you feel better about your body inside and out, and jump-start your healthy choices so you’ll have the motivation to be active and feel A-MA-ZING. THIS cleanse is brand new. None of the celebrity health gurus or fitspiration icons have tried this, and you’ll NEVER hear about it from an actress in US Weekly. You don’t have to drink cayenne pepper juice OR forego solid foods for days and you’ll STILL remove countless toxins from your body. But this time, the toxins are in your mind and they’re just as harmful to your health.

Those mental toxins have built up from years of taking in distorted, profit-driven messages about what it means to have a healthy and fit female body. Whether it’s health and fitness magazines featuring airbrushed celebrities in bikinis with the latest strategies to get “sleek and sexy” in 3 days without ever moving an inch, orfitspiration models with exposed buttocks, breasts and oiled-up abs all over Instagram and Facebook — you’ve likely got a pretty specific image in your mind of what it means to be a “fit” and “healthy” woman.(We’re not even going to show you an example here, because you already have it in your mind.) This is a trending beauty ideal that is parading as a fitness ideal — made to look attainable for any woman willing to put in enough effort, willpower and sacrifice.

But what about the vast majority of women who will never, ever have six-pack abs, jutting hip bones, cellulite-free thighs that don’t touch, and every other appearance ideal that is held up as a sure indicator of fitness — regardless of how many squats they do, how “clean” they eat, how many marathons they run, etc.? This image of what it looks like to be a fit woman is so ingrained in our cultural wallpaper that we are completely desensitized to it. It is so common and unquestioned that it has become natural and invisible. THIS cleanse will start to rid you of that numbness. Read entire article

Is your body, the incredibly complex, awe-inspiring physical vessel that carts around your brain, and equipment for breathing, excreting, digesting and so much more, and is perhaps even growing new life within it, currently at a level of slimness determined as attractive according to western notions of female beauty such that it can be exposed to fellow human beings on the beach without causing them unnecessary trauma?

My colleague Caitlin Roper highlighted on twitter how only certain bodies are deemed to be fit and healthy.

In response to the backlash, Protein World publicly mocked its critics, saying they were fat and insecure. Buzzfeed (as well as providing a beautify gallery of other doctored billboards) records Protein World’s contemptuous responses here.

Protein World’s complete failure to demonstrate any corporate social responsibility, let alone basic civility, can only help boost signatures on this Change.org petition which already has over 36,000 signatures. Add your name today. Remove ‘Are you beach body ready advertisements’

Fat talk perpetuates and normalises body shame

Rebecca Guzelian

How does it make you feel when someone close to you tells you they feel fat?

As a woman in my mid-20s, this is something I experience every day – from my friends, family and others around me. And now, I have to see it on Facebook. Facebook encourages women to tell their friends just how much they hate their bodies, through ‘I feel fat’ statuses and emoticons.

I was 19 when I began using Facebook in 2007. Though I wanted to think the worst of my adolescent years of body insecurity were behind me, I found my insecurities heightened through this popular social media platform. One of the best things Facebook has provided is a sense of connection, a feeling of belonging and a way to experience events in the lives of those close to us. But with this comes the ability to look closely at other people’s lives, and equally have our own lives placed under the spotlight. We can often find ourselves drawing comparisons between our life, and the lives of those appearing in our daily newsfeeds.

But it’s not just about these personal experiences. As a counsellor in the field of eating disorders, I spend a lot of time talking to people about the way they feel about their bodies – how much they hate their bodies, how dissatisfied they are that they can’t look the way they want, how hard they are working and how much time they are spending trying to change their bodies, and how this is ruining their lives. I also spend a lot of time speaking to concerned loved ones, carers, teachers and health professionals who see the pain of disordered eating and body shame up close, yet can struggle to help.

Since 2013, Facebook has enabled users to choose ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ emoticons as part of the ‘feelings’ feature of status updates. Having these word choices normalises the use of derogatory descriptive terms in the place of real feelings. How can a person feel ‘fat’ or ‘ugly’ when these aren’t actually feelings? ‘Fat’ and ‘ugly’ are adjectives. Of course these adjectives are also judgements, placed on us by society to make women, (and increasingly men), feel negatively about their bodies. When someone says “I feel fat” what they’re really communicating is their feelings of unattractiveness, unhappiness, embarrassment and insecurity about their body. These feelings are most commonly a response to unrealistic, culturally promoted ideals of thinness and beauty.

Normalising this kind of language is especially harmful to young people. Body image is consistently rated as the biggest issue of concern for all young Australians. Research shows this kind of ‘fat talk’ increases body shame and disordered eating and lowers self-esteem –all risk factors for developing a clinical eating disorder. Facebook use is also associated with increased risk of developing an eating disorder, along with other risk factors including weight concern and anxiety.

As someone who has experienced the effects of this kind of language, both personally and professionally with clients, I’m asking you to rally with me in urging Facebook to remove the ‘fat’ and ‘ugly’ emoticons and options from status updates.

Change petitions launched globally today

Rebecca and seven other young women across the globe have launched parallel change.org petitions today urging Facebook to remove ‘I feel fat’ statuses and emoticons.

The women represent Australia, Mexico, USA, UK, Ireland, Germany, Brazil and Argentina The petitions are supported by Endangered Bodies, an international initiative dedicated to challenging body hatred and promoting self-acceptance.

The women say Facebook must act because:

+ Body image is consistently rated as one of the biggest issues of concern for young Australians. It is well documented that fat talk perpetuates and normalises body shame rather than reducing it.

+ ‘Fat’ is an adjective, a descriptive word about a physical attribute. It is not a feeling. We all have fat, we all need fat. But saying ‘I feel fat’ is shorthand for feeling unattractive, unhappy with oneself, or for dissatisfaction.” (Shape Your Culture)

+ Fear of fat and idealisation of thinness is reflected in the form of weight stigma. This can have a serious impact on millions of individuals dealing with negative body image. Body shaming and weight stigma are associated with lower self-esteem and disordered eating, an issue that Facebook needs to take seriously.

We need change. We need it now. And we need your help to get it. Please join us in our crusade. We are in the midst of a public health crisis in Australia. Weight, eating and body image issues are rampant. The weight loss services industry has positioned itself as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, causing harm and confusion to Australians.

If you are a REGISTERED HEALTH PROFESSIONAL IN AUSTRALIA (eg psychologist, doctor, dietician) and you share our concern, please sign the petition for a Senate inquiry into the need for regulation of the weight loss services industry, namely the advertising and sale of dietary products and supplements. If you are not a health professional, please join Endangered Bodies Australia so we can keep you informed and let you know of the many ways you can be involved both now and in the future.

Young women make short films to address youth concerns about body image.

Local young women launch new ABC body image program for Mental Illness Education ACT at the National Gallery of Australia, Monday 7th April, 10.30am to 12.00pm.

Young filmmaker Mary Quinlan and ACT’s Youth Ambassador, Molly Hodge-Meli together cut the ribbon to officially launch the new films and Any Body’s Cool program that works to prevent poor body image becoming a risk factor in the development of eating disorders in young women. They were joined by Dr Vivienne Lewis from the University of Canberra and event host, writer and advocate Melinda Tankard Reist.

“Eating disorders are the third most common chronic illness for young women” says Dr Vivienne Lewis body image specialist from the University of Canberra, “We know that body image is one of the top personal concerns reported by young people; supporting positive body image for young women is important work considering today’s cultural and social complexities”

The University of Canberra, key academic partners for the program’s redevelopment, will work with Mental Illness Education ACT to deliver the school program that works directly with young people and their teachers. The program shows how to role-model healthy behaviours and use body image friendly language to create safe and not stigmatising environments to encourage attitudes that support body diversity and reduce stigma based on a person’s body shape and size.

During the launch community members, teachers and students viewed local young filmmaker, Mary Quinlan’s, short film about her own struggle with body image – one of five films made by local young women for the new Any Body’s Cool Program. The program underwent significant redevelopment from a two-week-only theatrical season to permanent school-based program that is centred on real stories from local young women.

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